Women are in greater danger than men from exposure to agricultural pesticides. Sarah Marriott reports on the health risks
Jane, in England, experienced nausea, breathlessness and chronic fatigue. Carmen, in Mexico, suffered from chills, weakness and disorientation. Another woman, in Pakistan, vomited as soon as she swallowed food. In California, Nora gave birth to a son without his left hand.
What do these women have in common? They were all exposed to agricultural pesticides. Many of us try to reduce the amount of chemicals we absorb and increasingly buy organic produce, but agricultural workers, particularly in developing countries, rarely have that luxury.
Millions of tonnes of pesticides are used on crops around the world; on Costa Rica's banana plantations, it is estimated that 64kg a worker was used in 1999. Many pesticides banned or restricted in industrialised countries are used in the developing world, and stores of obsolete chemicals continue to leak into the environment - affecting the soil, water, people and wildlife - and enter the food chain.
"Long-term, low-level exposures are linked to chronic disease, cancer in children and adults, adverse reproductive outcomes, Parkinson's and other neurological diseases," says Marion Moses, founder of the Pesticide Education Center, in San Francisco.
As she points out in Silent Invaders: Pesticides, Livelihoods and Women's Health, a collection of studies by leading thinkers in public health, "in some parts of the world, women make up 85 per cent or more of pesticide applicators on commercial farms and plantations. They work while pregnant and breastfeeding. Even when not directly handling pesticides, women in agricultural areas live, work and raise their children in a toxic environment".
Some "fat-loving" pesticides seem to be absorbed and retained more "effectively" in women's bodies than in men's. Research on Russian workers who produce the herbicide organochlorine lindane showed that women were contaminated for longer than men: 9.2 years compared with 6.2 years. A Swedish study suggests lindane may increase the incidence of breast cancer in post-menopausal women. Yet this carcinogen, which is being phased out in the EU, is still used on cocoa crops in the developing world and may even contaminate some of the chocolate we eat.
Fat-loving organochlorine pesticides, such as DDT, HCH and HCB, take a long time to break down into less toxic substances, and they can be passed on to babies by nursing mothers who have been contaminated. They also disrupt the endocrine system, which controls hormone levels, and can result in a wide range of physical and neurological symptoms.
The exposure of pregnant women to pesticides may also affect unborn children. Many chemicals can cross the placenta during the first trimester, significantly increasing the risk of congenital malformation.
In Pakistan, female cotton pickers report that they work until the last day of pregnancy, yet tests show pesticide poisoning on cotton plantations is almost universal. Symptoms include dizziness, burning skin, muscular pain, blisters and suffocation.
Pesticides can also damage reproductive organs. It is well documented that men can produce fewer and less mobile sperm; a Californian study has also found significant rates of ovulatory dysfunction and endometriosis (which can cause infertility) among female agriculture workers.
"Pesticides issues are primarily seen in an environmental context rather than addressing the social, livelihood and health consequences," says Barbara Dinham, director of Pesticide Action Network UK (www.pan-uk.org)and one of the editors of Silent Invaders. Women may suffer unnecessary exposure because they "lack information, training and other services"; they are also less likely to be able to read labels and instructions.
"Women work in fields during and after spraying, and take young children with them, exposing themselves to severe health effects. Women also wash work clothes," says Dinham.
While men surveyed in Zimbabwe showed a good knowledge of the risks of DDT (highly toxic but still used in malarial areas), 95 per cent of mothers questioned had no idea it was dangerous.
Poverty can also increase exposure. "Economically disadvantaged populations are at high risk of exposure because . . . their living conditions are characterised by indoor air pollution, inappropriate ventilation and the unsafe storage of chemicals. Women tend to be the poorest and most vulnerable group," according to Silent Invaders.
In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 12 million women and 10 million men are living with HIV; exposure to organophosphate pesticides can compromise the immune system and hasten the development of AIDS. The solution, according to Sam Page of the UK- and Zimbabwe-based African Farmers' Organic Research and Training project, is to ban these pesticides and promote a healthy diet based on indigenous, low-maintenance crops. Such a strategy, he believes, will help parents live longer and "is far more cost-effective, sustainable and feasible than making anti-retroviral therapy widely available in rural areas".
Small farmers in developing countries have become dependent on expensive, toxic pesticides, but new initiatives - "the introduction of farmer-oriented training for crop production, for either organic or integrated pest management systems" - may revolutionise this, says Dinham. "These successfully reduce or eliminate pesticides and increase yields and farmer income. They help poor farmers to take control of their own lives and livelihoods." And women's health, too.
Silent Invaders: Pesticides, Livelihoods and Women's Health, edited by Miriam Jacobs and Barbara Dinham, is published by Zed Books (£14.95 in UK)
How pesticides are used in Ireland
THERE is no study of pesticides' effects on women in Ireland, as far as the Pesticides Control Service and the Irish Doctors' Environmental Association are aware. Nor do they know of any study of the effects on the general population.
A major obstacle, says Dr Philip Michael of the IDEA, has been the absence of analytical facilities. This may be rectified by the Department of Health and Children's draft environmental- health action plan.
In 2001 the Pesticides Control Service had authorised more than 500 active substances as plant-protection products.
No data exists for the number of active substances authorised for other uses, which are known as biocides.
The service calculates that 2,097 tonnes of active substances were used to protect plants in 2000.
Government bodies such as Teagasc and the Health & Safety Authority publish pesticide handbooks.According to one: "The label on the container provides a precise summary of precautions to be taken and restrictions on the use of the pesticide. It is a legal requirement that the pesticide is handled, applied and stored in accordance with the label instructions."
The Department of Health and Children considers that "additional emphasis must be placed on efforts to ensure that farmers and growers comply with label instructions relating to measures to protect human health".
Iva Pocock